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‘Blatantly illegal’: Mass. leaders react to Trump officials leaking war plans through group chat
Multiple members of Congress from Massachusetts said that the leak put service members at risk through sheer incompetence.
After it was revealed in The Atlantic that senior members of the Trump administration accidentally revealed secretive war plans to the magazine’s editor in a group chat, politicians across the country are demanding answers and expressing their outrage. Some of the most pointed responses have come from elected officials in Massachusetts.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren said the leak was illegal and called administration officials “amateurs.”
This is blatantly illegal and dangerous beyond belief.
— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) March 24, 2025
Our national security is in the hands of complete amateurs.
What other highly sensitive national security conversations are happening over group chat? Any other random people accidentally added to those, too? https://t.co/voZY5a38tc
Rep. Katherine Clark called for people to be fired over the incident.
This is an insane level of incompetence that endangers your family and our national security. Heads should roll. https://t.co/hMuV7zLNfy
— Katherine Clark (@WhipKClark) March 24, 2025
On March 11, Atlantic Editor Jeffrey Goldberg was sent a request to connect on Signal, an open-source encrypted messaging service, according to the report. The invitation appeared to be from President Trump’s national security advisor, Michael Waltz.
Previously:
Goldberg says he accepted the request and was added to a Signal group chat a few days later called “Houthi PC small group.” In the report, Goldberg describes how users appearing to be Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, and others discussed plans to bomb Houthi targets in Yemen. That attack soon came to pass, seemingly confirming the authenticity of the group chat.
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Hegseth later claimed that “nobody was texting war plans,” even though the White House had already confirmed that the discussion was real to The New York Times. The National Security Council also confirmed the authenticity of the text chain to the Associated Press.
Rep. Jake Auchincloss, a Marine veteran, told Politico that the incident represented “incompetence incarnate.”
Rep. Seth Moulton, another Marine veteran who represents Massachusetts in Congress, said that the incompetence on display was “so severe that it could have gotten Americans killed.”
“Hegseth is in so far over his head that he is a danger to this country and our men and women in uniform,” Moulton added.
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Sen. Ed Markey shared Moulton’s concern that service members could be endangered.
“This is malpractice. Donald Trump is a national security risk and his advisors would put our service members in danger with their recklessness and incompetence,” Markey said.
Trump, for his part, denied knowing anything about the group chat and instead chose to baselessly criticize The Atlantic. As Trump assesses the fallout, he is reportedly considering firing Waltz.
Rep. Jim McGovern used a string of posts on X to call the leak a “national security disaster,” demand an investigation, and label Hegseth a hypocrite.
Trump’s Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, said in 2016:
— Rep. Jim McGovern (@RepMcGovern) March 24, 2025
“How damaging is it… our leaders may be exposing [our allies] because of their gross negligence or their recklessness in handling information?”
Guess what, Pete? You just did exactly that. And it’s beyond damaging.
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